During my up to now less than entirely successful experiments with cast bullets, I need to test whether it was my powder (Vectan Sp3) that was causing problems.

So I picked a random yet safe load, and chucked a slack handful of match kings down range.

The result was more than adequate accuracy for most short range applications, with reduced recoil and reduced barrel wear. Due to the reduced fill ratio, the group was strung vertically... to the tune of 1.25MOA, of which approximately 0.65MOA is the stringing, assuming the group to be circular otherwise.

Aside from the random loads you get with the Lee die sets which sometimes show such a load with 2400, none of the other data booklets I have show them!

Given that powder is horrendously expensive these days, there is certainly good and sufficient reason to use these slightly reduced loads with jacketed bullets, since in a full power case you are more or less halving the amount of powder required (e.g. 16gn 2400 vs 40gn N140) without compromising accuracy for all but the most demanding applications at 100 m.

So, I thoroughly recommend Sp3/Ba6/2400/N110 or similar with jacketed bullets for 100 metre use.

It seems like a great idea for casual practice. However, isn't the use of such loads prohibited for SR competition use - or at least severely frowned upon? I seem to recall that ugly has refered to use of these sort of loads for competition use as 'cheating'.

Ed Harris has 2 different "the loads" -- his earlier one being 16 grains 2400, and the later being the 13 grains Red Dot.

Both of them were developed for cast bullet shooting, but perform equally well with jacketed bullets, with a slight reduction in muzzle velocity due to the extra energy required to swage the jackets into the rifling and increased friction.

He claims that they give good performance when shooting flat-based undersized FMJ (e.g. .308" in a .303" or a 7.62 x 54 R) since the pressure curve peaks a lot earlier than with a normal load, giving the bullet an extra hard initial thump right at the start of its travel, setting it up into the rifling. Doesn't work as well with boat-tails though...

These loads are supposed to be good up to 200 yards with your normal 600 yard elevation, and wind deflection in terms of minutes of angle is supposedly the same as your normal full power load also at 600 yards.